Indeed, the Soviet Government, hav-
ing led the nation successfully through the Great Patriotic
War of 1941-45, as the Russians call it, and then to com-
plete recuperation during the post-war years, is more
firmly entrenched than ever before.
ing led the nation successfully through the Great Patriotic
War of 1941-45, as the Russians call it, and then to com-
plete recuperation during the post-war years, is more
firmly entrenched than ever before.
Soviet Union - 1952 - Soviet Civilization
S.
military attache
in Moscow and later presumably photocopied secretly by
Communist agents during the General's visit to Frank-
furt, Germany. The quotations were reproduced in a
book published in Eastern Germany by a former British
officer. Typical entries in General Grow's diary for
1951 were: January 27-- "The bridge here [at Rostov]
is best target in S. Russia. This, together with bridge over
Kuban R. at Kavkazskaya, would cut off all the Caucasus
except for poor line to Astrakhan which could easily be
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? SOVIET FOREIGH POLICY
cut"; February 5-- "We need a voice to lead us without
equivocation: Communism must be destroyed. . . . This
war cannot be conducted according to Marquis of Queens-
berry rules. . . . We must employ every subversive device
to undermine the confidence and loyalty of Soviet sub-
jects for their regime. . . . Anything, truth or falsehood,
to poison the thoughts of the population. "55
On April 28, 1952, the U. S. Army initiated court-
martial proceedings against General Grow "on charges
of having improperly recorded secret military informa-
tion in private records and of having failed to safeguard
such classified information. "56 In July an army court-
martial found Grow guilty of these charges and sentenced
him to "a reprimand and suspension from command
for six months. "57 The conviction was to be reviewed by
higher army authorities.
Morally on the same plane as American threats of war
or bombing against the U. S. S. R. have been the various
suggestions made in the United States to assassinate
Premier Joseph Stalin. The worst example I have seen
of this outright incitement to murder appeared in The
American Magazine of February, 1951, under the title
"Why Doesn't Somebody Kill Stalin? " The article was
featured on the cover. Its author was Ellsworth Ray-
mond, who served for six years as a political analyst and
translator for the American Embassy in Moscow and who
during World War II was stationed in Washington as
Chief of the U. S. S. R. Economic Section, Military Intel-
ligence, U. S. Army General Staff.
Mr. Raymond started his shameful article as follows:
"'Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if somebody killed
Stalin? ' This is a question I've heard over and over since
the cold war turned hot. Many people today blame the
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? SOVIET CIVILlZATiOH
world's troubles on this one man, who has held Russia
in his iron grip for twenty-five years. They believe his
death would bring peace to mankind. "58 The author goes
on to show that unfortunately Stalin is very well protected
against assassins and outlines the many precautions the
Soviet leader has taken. In the middle of the piece there
is a picture of Premier Stalin with the reproduction of a
target and its concentric circles superimposed over his
face. The obvious intent is to suggest that someone
should shoot for the bull's-eye.
In August, 1951, the publishing house of Farrar,
Straus and Young brought out a new novel by Sterling
Noel called / Killed Stalin. The story is told in the first
person and the advertisements played up the quotation:
"The date was 1959 when the most dangerous manhunt
in the world was ended. "59 This registers the fact that
the "hero" of the book finally tracked down Stalin and
shot him to death. Eton Books later published the novel
in a cheap, paper-bound edition. The back cover had a
representation of Stalin lying dead with a large blood-
stain on his tunic just over the heart. Again to reverse the
situation, imagine the reaction of Americans in every
walk of life if a leading Soviet magazine ran an article
called "Why Doesn't Somebody Kill Truman? " and a
Soviet publisher followed this up a few months later by
issuing a book with the title "I Killed Truman! "
We must not blink the fact that terrorism in foreign
lands is a method that now definitely figures in the minds
of American officials. In September, 1951, the American
Congress passed a Mutual Security Act, signed by Pres-
ident Truman, which sets aside the handsome total of
$100,000,000 to finance the activities of "selected persons
who are residing in or escapees" from Soviet Russia or
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? SOVIET FOREIGH POLICY
any country in the Communist bloc. An amendment
incorporated in the new law reads that this sum is to be
used "either to form such persons into elements of the
military forces supporting the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization or for other purposes. " It is the vague
clause "for other purposes" which carries the most sinis-
ter connotation.
In October, 1951, Congressman Charles J. Kersten,
Wisconsin Republican and sponsor of the amendment in
question, publicly protested that a new United Nations
code under consideration would conflict with the Amer-
ican legislation. He was referring to Section 5 of "Of-
fenses against the Peace and Security of Mankind," pre-
pared by the U. N. International Law Commission. This
section outlaws "the undertaking or encouragement by
the authorities of a state, of terrorist activities in another
state, or the toleration by the authorities of a state, of
organized activities calculated to carry out terrorist acts
in another state. "
In a letter to Warren R. Austin, chief United States
delegate to the United Nations, Mr. Kersten said that
the enactment of the proposed U. N. code "might prevent
groups in this country, as well as our Government, from
assisting in the liberation of the peoples of Eastern Eu-
ropean countries and other countries enslaved by the
Communist tyranny. " He added that "one of the main
objectives of a real liberation movement is to strike ter-
ror into the hearts of the Communist tyrants. . . . Libera-
tion will not be achieved merely by propaganda and par-
liamentary maneuver. "60 Mr. Austin replied to the frank
and undiplomatic Representative from Wisconsin that
"the attempt to restore a people's freedom does not seem
to merit the characterization of 'terrorist. ' "61
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
The Soviet Government, however, felt that Mr. Kers-
ten knew what his amendment was meant to accomplish
better than Mr. Austin; and in November, 1951, pro-
tested officially to the U. S. Government that the Mutual
Security Act violated the Roosevelt-Litvinov agreements
made in 1933 at the time of American recognition of the
Soviet Union. The Soviet note charged that the Act
"constitutes crass intervention of the United States in
the internal affairs of other countries. At the same time
it represents unparalleled violation of the standards of
international law and is incompatible with the normal
relations between countries and respect for state sover-
eignty. The adoption of such a law cannot be regarded
as other than an aggressive act aimed at further compli-
cating relations between the United States and the Soviet
Union. . . . The law envisages financing persons and
armed groups in the territory of the Soviet Union and a
number of other states for carrying out subversive activ-
ity and sabotage within the above states. "62 We must
grant that the Soviet Government presents a very strong
case.
This matter of the Mutual Security Act ties in closely
with the general saber-rattling against Soviet Russia and
the whole hysterical atmosphere prevailing in America.
The United States Government has done little to dis-
courage this state of mind. President Truman could have
vetoed the Mutual Security Act; and from 1948 to 1952
he or his Cabinet officers could have administered some
effective rebuke to the American provocateurs of war.
Instead a high Government official, the Secretary of the
Navy, joined, as we have seen, in the hate-Russia, hit-
Russia chorus. In fact, it must be admitted that the war
incitements aid and abet the Truman-Acheson foreign
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? SOVIET FOREIGH POLICY
policy by conditioning the people of the United States to
the idea of American-Soviet hostilities and by creating a
psychology favorable to colossal armaments.
In this section I have included only the highlights in
provocative statements carried by the American press
calling for or describing war with or subjugation of the
Soviet Union. Because I listen to the radio so infrequent-
ly, I have undoubtedly missed many similar utterances
over the air which were not reproduced in the news-
papers. And in any case I do not pretend that my cover-
age of the press has been thorough. But the quotations
I have given, a number of them from officials or ex-offi-
cials of the U. S. Government or armed forces, are repre-
sentative of an influential group in the United States.
Although this group is a minority one at present, it is
conceivable that a swing in the political pendulum could
bring it into power.
Here we have one set of reasons why the Soviet leaders
and the Soviet people harbor some doubts as to America's
peaceful intentions. Nor is it only people in Soviet
Russia or other Communist lands who are apprehensive
about where the United States is heading. Mr. Frank
Owen, editor of the conservative London Daily Mail,
recently remarked that American war hysteria was "not
only terrific but terrifying. " And Professor Arnold Toyn-
bee, noted British historian, was so appalled by what he
learned that after returning from a visit to America in
1952, he coined for his countrymen the slogan, "No An-
nihilation without Representation. "
A leading Republican, Mr. John Cowles, President
of The Minneapolis Star and Tribune, summed up the
matter in Look in October, 1951, when he wrote: "Many
highly intelligent Europeans and Asians, individuals who
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
loathe Russian totalitarianism and believe completely in
the democratic ideal, fear that through ineptness the
United States is going to blunder into war with Russia,
or that we will become so provoked at Russia's exaspe-
rating conduct that we will ourselves precipitate war. "68
Actions are of course more important than words.
Yet in the tense situation that has developed since the
Second World War, widely publicized statements that
threaten the Soviets with armed violence, bombing, mili-
tary conquest and dismemberment can hardly be said to
help the cause of international amity. Such fulminations,
furthermore, can be interpreted as a conscious effort to
counteract the American people's traditional longing for
peace. Yet some of those who indulge in this bombastic
war talk evidently do not themselves realize fully the
serious implications of what they are saying. And their
attitude is typical of the immaturity which many keen
observers see as a widespread trait of American political
life.
While Soviet writers, speakers and government offi-
cials currently use harsh and vituperative language only
too often in reference to foreign countries, their public
pronouncements do not threaten war, aggression or any
incendiary act on the part of the Soviet armed forces.
There is to be found in the Soviet press not a single
statement by anyone concerning war that is comparable
to the shocking, clenched-fist abuse which pours forth
year after year from the United States. The fundamental
attitude of the Russians is well represented, I venture to
suggest, in the new legislation outlawing war propaganda
throughout the U. S. S. R. *
? Cf. p. 328.
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? CHAPTER IX CO-EXISTENCE OR CO-
DESTRUCTION?
1. The Madness of a Third World War
Those Americans who talk so blithely about knocking
out the Soviet Union in a quick atom-bomb war and who
draw up cocky blueprints for the conquest of the U. S. S. R.
know very little about either modern warfare or modern
communism. They are essentially political dreamers out
of touch with reality and the victims of their own foolish
propaganda. They are the sort who spread the silly story
that Hitler would have defeated the Soviet Government
in short order, except that his invading troops treated the
Russians so badly that they decided not to revolt against
Stalin after all. These wishful thinkers, preoccupied with
their fantasies of Soviet doom, choose to forget or ignore
the lessons of modern European history, the fate of Na-
poleon, the immensity of the Russian tableland, the cold-
ness of the Russian winter, the heroism of the Russian
people and, above all, everything that the Soviets accom-
plished in the Second World War.
In this year 1952, however, Soviet Russia is a good
deal more powerful than in 1941 when the Nazis attacked.
Seven additional years of peacetime planning have ad-
vanced it far beyond pre-war strength as regards both its
economic system and armaments. It possesses both the
atom bomb in various calibres and improved jet planes.
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? SOVIET CP/ILIZATIOH
Also there is not the slightest indication that the Soviet
people, whatever their dissatisfactions, are in a mood to
overthrow the Stalin regime or to greet a fresh wave of
invaders as saviors.
Indeed, the Soviet Government, hav-
ing led the nation successfully through the Great Patriotic
War of 1941-45, as the Russians call it, and then to com-
plete recuperation during the post-war years, is more
firmly entrenched than ever before. It is very doubtful
indeed that a revolutionary movement can make head-
way in any country when, as in the U. S. S. R. , its people
have recently won a smashing military victory and are
enjoying full employment and a steady bettering of eco-
nomic conditions.
Furthermore, insofar as defense is concerned, a string
of buffer-state allies buttress the European borders of
Soviet Russia; while in Asia Communist China, with its
huge resources, a population of 460 million and a rapidly
developing economy, is allied to the U. S. S. R. in a mutual
security pact. A war with the Soviet Union clearly means
a conflict with the entire bloc of Communist-led countries
from Poland and Czechoslovakia in the West to China
and North Korea in the East. The military deadlock in
the Korean struggle has demonstrated that the Commun-
ist-trained troops of the Asiatic mainland are formidable
fighters.
The Library of Congress has estimated that the Sec-
ond World War cost mankind approximately $4,000,000,-
000,000-four trillion dollars- and 40,000,000 in human
casualties. The United States alone spent $351,000,000,-
000 initially, but the ultimate expense -- including inte-
rest, pensions, bonuses and so on -- will come to about
$1,400,000,000,000,000. We can be sure that a Third
World War, with atom and quite possibly hydrogen
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? CO-EXISTENCE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOW
bombs showering down upon the great industrial centers
of Europe, Asia and America, will be far more costly in
terms of property and human life. But the main question
I want to ask is this: When the fearful holocaust is over,
what will the net gain be for the United States or any
of the belligerents? In a war to the death between the
American-led bloc and the Communist-led bloc will not
both sides essentially be losers, no matter who "wins"?
In the New York Herald Tribune of June 18, 1951,
Mr. Walter Lippmann, the most intelligent columnist
of the conservative press in America, made some interest-
ing predictions about the over-all economic and political
consequences of a total war between the American and
the Communist coalitions. Mr. Lippmann is of the
opinion that the United States and its allies would ulti-
mately win the global conflict. But in the process "West-
ern Europe would sink into anarchy, and North America,
victorious but weary, impoverished and isolated, would
find it hard to preserve the remnants of its freedom and
harder still to bring back to life again the stricken civili-
zation of the Western World. "
This terrible war, Mr. Lippmann goes on to say,
"would be so devastating and prolonged that in all of the
Eurasian continent there would be left no governments of
sufficient power and authority to restore order and recon-
struct the ruined world. " The final outcome would be
"a vast and formless disorder . . . for in a total war we
would have to destroy many of the great cities, and part-
icularly the great centers of administration and communi-
cation, in order to achieve victory. " Accordingly, Mr.
Lippmann prophesies, there would be a breakdown of
national states throughout Eurasia, with local dictator-
ships and terrorist gangs taking their place.
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
Mr. Lippmann's analysis makes clear that even an
American military triumph in the Great Atomic War
would result disastrously for both America and the world
at large. It would be a Pyrrhic victory of immeasurable
proportions. Instead of preserving and extending demo-
cracy, such a duel with communism would probably
bring about dictatorships throughout Europe and Asia,
and quite possibly in the United States as well. Instead of
bolstering capitalism, it would finish it abroad and very
much weaken it in America. However, and this Mr.
Lippmann does not state, it would create on a widespread
scale such catastrophic conditions of poverty, starvation,
economic collapse and political chaos that Communist
and socialist movements would have a unique opportun-
ity for triumphant resurgence.
Those who think they can contain communism
through military power overlook the revolutionary pos-
sibilities, if not probabilities, of international conflict.
As Dorothy Thompson explains: "Revolutions, to be
sure, carry on wars; but wars create the revolutions. For
war is, itself, a revolution, embodying the very spirit of
violence in its most complete expression, infecting the
human spirit, accustoming men to hideous cruelties, dis-
locating stable economies, and intensifying all the griev-
ances and injustices which are present in every society,
by adding to them the supreme injustice -- injustice
against the very order of nature. For in the order of na-
ture, the sons of men bury their parents; but in the order
of war, the parents bury their sons. Both ancient and
modern revolutions illustrate this inter-relationship be-
tween war and revolution. "1
Miss Thompson goes on to state that the French,
Russian and Chinese Revolutions all followed on the
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? CO-EXISTETiCE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOW
heels of international war. "A handful of Bolshevist
agitators," she says, "could never have seized power in
Russia but for the anarchy accompanying collapsing
armies and the cry of a war-weary people for peace. . . .
The Chinese Revolution was also a direct result of over a
decade of war. . . . As for Europe, the thought that it
could be saved for any order of liberty and law by another
war fought on its soil cannot be entertained by anyone
with a political mind. Another war would break down
the last remnants of political, social and economic order,
already undermined by the last war, and regardless of
the machinations of the European Communist Parties. "
The facts are, of course, that the First World War,
in which the Western democracies were victorious, did
give the Communists their chance to put across the Rus-
sian Revolution. The Second World War, in which the
Western Powers were again triumphant, and in which
the Fascist Triplice desperately tried to wipe out "the
Red peril" in both East and West, opened the gates to
Communist domination throughout Eastern Europe and
the vast domain of China, with its teeming population;
wrecked or bankrupted capitalism in Britain, France,
Germany and Italy; and set off the chain reaction of re-
bellion against Western imperialism all over Asia. The
Third World War could comparatively advance the
cause of international communism, which might as a re-
sult engulf Western Europe, the Middle East and south-
ern Asia. As I have said many times, the Communists are
opposed to international war; but if it is imposed upon
them, they will most certainly try to take advantage of
it to spread their influence and rule.
Where I disagree with Walter Lippmann is in his too
easy assumption that the American-led bloc would win
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
over the Communist-led bloc in a Third World War.
Although I am no more of a military expert than Mr.
Lippmann, I think it more likely that in the long-drawn-
out struggle both sides would score dramatic successes
here and there, but neither would emerge with decisive
victory. The result would be a military stalemate; and
the two blocs would cease fighting at last because of
mutual exhaustion and destruction.
I am convinced that despite all the recent develop-
ments in airplanes and atomic bombs, no well-organized
modern state possessing a large population, up-to-date
armaments and a territory of continental proportions is
likely to capitulate without an overwhelming invasion
by ground troops. I doubt whether American-led armies
would have even as much success in marching through
the U. S. S. R. as did Hitler's mechanized legions, which
at least had the advantage of proximity. And let us re-
member that the Nazis never captured Moscow, as did
the ill-fated Napoleon in 1812. In fact today the Soviets,
with their vast industrial development of the Siberian
hinterland and Soviet Central Asia, could lose Moscow,
Gorky and Stalingrad, and yet remain a formidable fight-
ing force defending and striking back from the Volga
River line and setting up a new capital far behind the
Urals in the middle of Siberia. Under these circum-
stances the Soviets would still retain an area twice as big
as continental United States.
But the sensational blueprints for the conquest of the
U. S. S. R. overlook little details like this. For instance,
Collier's issue about the Third World War envisages the
Red armies falling apart and the Soviet Government
collapsing on the basis of "peripheral attacks against the
'heartland' by land, air and sea (utilizing to the full the
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? CO-EXISTEHCE OR CO-DESTRUCTION
transport capacity and mobility of sea and air power) and
heavy bombing attacks against the enemy's interior. No
deep land penetration of Russia was ever attempted -- or
indeed, ever seriously contemplated. "2 According to this
scheme, the anti-Soviet armies halted only two or three
hundred miles within the Soviet border, at the Pripet
Marshes and Kiev. Thus the Collier's military "experts"
light-heartedly sidestep that very inconvenient defense-
in-depth which is the classic Russian method of dealing
with an invading foe.
Moreover, in the conflict with the Communist-led
bloc, America and its allies would have to knock out
through invasion another exceedingly tough customer,
namely, the People's Republic of China. If the hard-
hitting Japanese armies could not subdue a disorganized
though stubborn China over a period of some ten years,
it does not seem probable that a new expeditionary force
would get much farther against a China now far more
unified and far better able to defend itself than under
the corrupt and inefficient regime of Chiang Kai-shek.
In this discussion I have been assuming that the forces
at the command of the American coalition have been able
with no great trouble to reach the frontiers of Soviet
Russia and China. But naturally the Soviet-Chinese
coalition is not going to sit idly by permitting such a
thing to happen. Indeed, if a Third World War should
break out, it seems likely that one of the first develop-
ments would be for Soviet armies to push a considerable
distance westward in Europe and for Chinese armies to
overrun much of southeastern Asia. If this should take
place, the American bloc, with less manpower at its dis-
posal than the enemy, would have a tremendous job
simply driving him back to his own borders.
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
In analyzing what might happen in a Third World
War, we cannot neglect the possibility of a victory for
the Communist bloc. In my opinion this eventuality is
as unlikely as a clearcut defeat for the Communist bloc.
For it would be just as difficult for the Soviet coalition
to invade and knock out the United States and Canada
as for America and its allies to invade and knock out
Communist China and Russia. One very fundamental
complication would immediately arise for the Soviet-Chi-
nese command in that it does not possess a vast fleet of
steamships, with a powerful navy to escort them, for the
transportation of the necessary millions of men across the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to the shores of the U. S. A.
This consideration alone shows how utterly irrational it
would be for the Soviet Union or China to contemplate
or undertake a war of aggression against North America.
As to atomic bombing, Americans cannot afford to
forget that continental United States is less than one-
fourth the combined area of China and Soviet Russia, in
both of which industry is widely dispersed over an enorm-
ous territory. Discussing this situation Mr. Stephen
White, an editor of Look and a close student of atomic
developments, wrote in 1952: "It must be realized that
Russia doesn't need as many bombs as the United States
needs. We live in a highly organized country. Russia is
generations behind in organization. That is our strength,
and our weakness. . . . America is like a watch -- a few
bombs at vulnerable spots could create chaos. Russia is
like a sundial -- not nearly as efficient as we are, and not
nearly as vulnerable. "3
A global conflict, then, between the two Great Power
blocs that control so much of the earth today would be
a futile, horrible catastrophe for all the countries in-
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? COEXISTENCE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOW
volved and for humanity as a whole. It would unloose
a mutual outpouring of death and destruction that could
set back human progress for centuries. And it would
surely result in the accelerated development of new weap-
ons of war even more fearful than the present atom
bombs. Already in February, 1952, William L. Laurence,
science reporter of The New York Times, stated that
American scientists can definitely produce the "cata-
clysmic hydrogen bomb. " About the same time Dr. L.
E. C. Hughes, Chairman of Britain's Atomic Information
Institute, said that a big-scale H-bomb explosion would
probably be the end of the world.
Even if there were any capitalism or any socialism
left, the Great Atomic War would not bring an ultimate
decision as to the respective merits of the two systems. In
any case we cannot accept as the main criterion of a civil-
ization's worth its ability to wage and win an interna-
tional conflict. The Third World War would most cer-
tainly create more problems than it solved; and would
leave mankind in a bitter, disorganized, economically
chaotic state which would in all likelihood lead to future
wars and revolutions. We cannot doubt that such a war
would be madness for everyone concerned.
2. Effects of American Foreign Policy
In his speech of November, 1945, Under Secretary
of State Dean Acheson, referring to American-Russian
relations, said: "For nearly a century and a half we have
gotten along well -- remarkably well when you consider
that our forms of government, our economic systems and
our special habits have never been similar. . . . Never,
in the past, has there been any place on the globe where
the vital interests of the American and Russian people
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
have clashed or even been antagonistic -- and there is no
objective reason to suppose that there should, now or in
the future, ever be such a place. There is an obvious
reason for this. We are both continental peoples with
adequate living space -- interested in developing and
enjoying the living space we have. Our ambition is to
achieve the highest possible standards of living among our
own peoples, and we have the wherewithal to achieve high
standards of living without conquest, through peaceful
development and trade. We have that opportunity, more-
over, only to the extent that we can create conditions of
peace and prevent war. Thus the paramount interest,
the only conceivable hope of both nations, lies in the
cooperative enterprise of peace. "4
Mr. Acheson's words are as applicable today as in
1945. But Mr. Acheson as Secretary of State has, I sub-
mit, followed policies inconsistent with his earlier opin-
ions. As the member of President Truman's Cabinet
primarily responsible for the foreign policy of the United
States, he has taken the lead in curtly turning down the
repeated proposals of the Soviet Government over the
past few years for a top-level conference between the
U. S. A. and the U.
in Moscow and later presumably photocopied secretly by
Communist agents during the General's visit to Frank-
furt, Germany. The quotations were reproduced in a
book published in Eastern Germany by a former British
officer. Typical entries in General Grow's diary for
1951 were: January 27-- "The bridge here [at Rostov]
is best target in S. Russia. This, together with bridge over
Kuban R. at Kavkazskaya, would cut off all the Caucasus
except for poor line to Astrakhan which could easily be
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? SOVIET FOREIGH POLICY
cut"; February 5-- "We need a voice to lead us without
equivocation: Communism must be destroyed. . . . This
war cannot be conducted according to Marquis of Queens-
berry rules. . . . We must employ every subversive device
to undermine the confidence and loyalty of Soviet sub-
jects for their regime. . . . Anything, truth or falsehood,
to poison the thoughts of the population. "55
On April 28, 1952, the U. S. Army initiated court-
martial proceedings against General Grow "on charges
of having improperly recorded secret military informa-
tion in private records and of having failed to safeguard
such classified information. "56 In July an army court-
martial found Grow guilty of these charges and sentenced
him to "a reprimand and suspension from command
for six months. "57 The conviction was to be reviewed by
higher army authorities.
Morally on the same plane as American threats of war
or bombing against the U. S. S. R. have been the various
suggestions made in the United States to assassinate
Premier Joseph Stalin. The worst example I have seen
of this outright incitement to murder appeared in The
American Magazine of February, 1951, under the title
"Why Doesn't Somebody Kill Stalin? " The article was
featured on the cover. Its author was Ellsworth Ray-
mond, who served for six years as a political analyst and
translator for the American Embassy in Moscow and who
during World War II was stationed in Washington as
Chief of the U. S. S. R. Economic Section, Military Intel-
ligence, U. S. Army General Staff.
Mr. Raymond started his shameful article as follows:
"'Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if somebody killed
Stalin? ' This is a question I've heard over and over since
the cold war turned hot. Many people today blame the
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? SOVIET CIVILlZATiOH
world's troubles on this one man, who has held Russia
in his iron grip for twenty-five years. They believe his
death would bring peace to mankind. "58 The author goes
on to show that unfortunately Stalin is very well protected
against assassins and outlines the many precautions the
Soviet leader has taken. In the middle of the piece there
is a picture of Premier Stalin with the reproduction of a
target and its concentric circles superimposed over his
face. The obvious intent is to suggest that someone
should shoot for the bull's-eye.
In August, 1951, the publishing house of Farrar,
Straus and Young brought out a new novel by Sterling
Noel called / Killed Stalin. The story is told in the first
person and the advertisements played up the quotation:
"The date was 1959 when the most dangerous manhunt
in the world was ended. "59 This registers the fact that
the "hero" of the book finally tracked down Stalin and
shot him to death. Eton Books later published the novel
in a cheap, paper-bound edition. The back cover had a
representation of Stalin lying dead with a large blood-
stain on his tunic just over the heart. Again to reverse the
situation, imagine the reaction of Americans in every
walk of life if a leading Soviet magazine ran an article
called "Why Doesn't Somebody Kill Truman? " and a
Soviet publisher followed this up a few months later by
issuing a book with the title "I Killed Truman! "
We must not blink the fact that terrorism in foreign
lands is a method that now definitely figures in the minds
of American officials. In September, 1951, the American
Congress passed a Mutual Security Act, signed by Pres-
ident Truman, which sets aside the handsome total of
$100,000,000 to finance the activities of "selected persons
who are residing in or escapees" from Soviet Russia or
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? SOVIET FOREIGH POLICY
any country in the Communist bloc. An amendment
incorporated in the new law reads that this sum is to be
used "either to form such persons into elements of the
military forces supporting the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization or for other purposes. " It is the vague
clause "for other purposes" which carries the most sinis-
ter connotation.
In October, 1951, Congressman Charles J. Kersten,
Wisconsin Republican and sponsor of the amendment in
question, publicly protested that a new United Nations
code under consideration would conflict with the Amer-
ican legislation. He was referring to Section 5 of "Of-
fenses against the Peace and Security of Mankind," pre-
pared by the U. N. International Law Commission. This
section outlaws "the undertaking or encouragement by
the authorities of a state, of terrorist activities in another
state, or the toleration by the authorities of a state, of
organized activities calculated to carry out terrorist acts
in another state. "
In a letter to Warren R. Austin, chief United States
delegate to the United Nations, Mr. Kersten said that
the enactment of the proposed U. N. code "might prevent
groups in this country, as well as our Government, from
assisting in the liberation of the peoples of Eastern Eu-
ropean countries and other countries enslaved by the
Communist tyranny. " He added that "one of the main
objectives of a real liberation movement is to strike ter-
ror into the hearts of the Communist tyrants. . . . Libera-
tion will not be achieved merely by propaganda and par-
liamentary maneuver. "60 Mr. Austin replied to the frank
and undiplomatic Representative from Wisconsin that
"the attempt to restore a people's freedom does not seem
to merit the characterization of 'terrorist. ' "61
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
The Soviet Government, however, felt that Mr. Kers-
ten knew what his amendment was meant to accomplish
better than Mr. Austin; and in November, 1951, pro-
tested officially to the U. S. Government that the Mutual
Security Act violated the Roosevelt-Litvinov agreements
made in 1933 at the time of American recognition of the
Soviet Union. The Soviet note charged that the Act
"constitutes crass intervention of the United States in
the internal affairs of other countries. At the same time
it represents unparalleled violation of the standards of
international law and is incompatible with the normal
relations between countries and respect for state sover-
eignty. The adoption of such a law cannot be regarded
as other than an aggressive act aimed at further compli-
cating relations between the United States and the Soviet
Union. . . . The law envisages financing persons and
armed groups in the territory of the Soviet Union and a
number of other states for carrying out subversive activ-
ity and sabotage within the above states. "62 We must
grant that the Soviet Government presents a very strong
case.
This matter of the Mutual Security Act ties in closely
with the general saber-rattling against Soviet Russia and
the whole hysterical atmosphere prevailing in America.
The United States Government has done little to dis-
courage this state of mind. President Truman could have
vetoed the Mutual Security Act; and from 1948 to 1952
he or his Cabinet officers could have administered some
effective rebuke to the American provocateurs of war.
Instead a high Government official, the Secretary of the
Navy, joined, as we have seen, in the hate-Russia, hit-
Russia chorus. In fact, it must be admitted that the war
incitements aid and abet the Truman-Acheson foreign
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? SOVIET FOREIGH POLICY
policy by conditioning the people of the United States to
the idea of American-Soviet hostilities and by creating a
psychology favorable to colossal armaments.
In this section I have included only the highlights in
provocative statements carried by the American press
calling for or describing war with or subjugation of the
Soviet Union. Because I listen to the radio so infrequent-
ly, I have undoubtedly missed many similar utterances
over the air which were not reproduced in the news-
papers. And in any case I do not pretend that my cover-
age of the press has been thorough. But the quotations
I have given, a number of them from officials or ex-offi-
cials of the U. S. Government or armed forces, are repre-
sentative of an influential group in the United States.
Although this group is a minority one at present, it is
conceivable that a swing in the political pendulum could
bring it into power.
Here we have one set of reasons why the Soviet leaders
and the Soviet people harbor some doubts as to America's
peaceful intentions. Nor is it only people in Soviet
Russia or other Communist lands who are apprehensive
about where the United States is heading. Mr. Frank
Owen, editor of the conservative London Daily Mail,
recently remarked that American war hysteria was "not
only terrific but terrifying. " And Professor Arnold Toyn-
bee, noted British historian, was so appalled by what he
learned that after returning from a visit to America in
1952, he coined for his countrymen the slogan, "No An-
nihilation without Representation. "
A leading Republican, Mr. John Cowles, President
of The Minneapolis Star and Tribune, summed up the
matter in Look in October, 1951, when he wrote: "Many
highly intelligent Europeans and Asians, individuals who
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
loathe Russian totalitarianism and believe completely in
the democratic ideal, fear that through ineptness the
United States is going to blunder into war with Russia,
or that we will become so provoked at Russia's exaspe-
rating conduct that we will ourselves precipitate war. "68
Actions are of course more important than words.
Yet in the tense situation that has developed since the
Second World War, widely publicized statements that
threaten the Soviets with armed violence, bombing, mili-
tary conquest and dismemberment can hardly be said to
help the cause of international amity. Such fulminations,
furthermore, can be interpreted as a conscious effort to
counteract the American people's traditional longing for
peace. Yet some of those who indulge in this bombastic
war talk evidently do not themselves realize fully the
serious implications of what they are saying. And their
attitude is typical of the immaturity which many keen
observers see as a widespread trait of American political
life.
While Soviet writers, speakers and government offi-
cials currently use harsh and vituperative language only
too often in reference to foreign countries, their public
pronouncements do not threaten war, aggression or any
incendiary act on the part of the Soviet armed forces.
There is to be found in the Soviet press not a single
statement by anyone concerning war that is comparable
to the shocking, clenched-fist abuse which pours forth
year after year from the United States. The fundamental
attitude of the Russians is well represented, I venture to
suggest, in the new legislation outlawing war propaganda
throughout the U. S. S. R. *
? Cf. p. 328.
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? CHAPTER IX CO-EXISTENCE OR CO-
DESTRUCTION?
1. The Madness of a Third World War
Those Americans who talk so blithely about knocking
out the Soviet Union in a quick atom-bomb war and who
draw up cocky blueprints for the conquest of the U. S. S. R.
know very little about either modern warfare or modern
communism. They are essentially political dreamers out
of touch with reality and the victims of their own foolish
propaganda. They are the sort who spread the silly story
that Hitler would have defeated the Soviet Government
in short order, except that his invading troops treated the
Russians so badly that they decided not to revolt against
Stalin after all. These wishful thinkers, preoccupied with
their fantasies of Soviet doom, choose to forget or ignore
the lessons of modern European history, the fate of Na-
poleon, the immensity of the Russian tableland, the cold-
ness of the Russian winter, the heroism of the Russian
people and, above all, everything that the Soviets accom-
plished in the Second World War.
In this year 1952, however, Soviet Russia is a good
deal more powerful than in 1941 when the Nazis attacked.
Seven additional years of peacetime planning have ad-
vanced it far beyond pre-war strength as regards both its
economic system and armaments. It possesses both the
atom bomb in various calibres and improved jet planes.
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? SOVIET CP/ILIZATIOH
Also there is not the slightest indication that the Soviet
people, whatever their dissatisfactions, are in a mood to
overthrow the Stalin regime or to greet a fresh wave of
invaders as saviors.
Indeed, the Soviet Government, hav-
ing led the nation successfully through the Great Patriotic
War of 1941-45, as the Russians call it, and then to com-
plete recuperation during the post-war years, is more
firmly entrenched than ever before. It is very doubtful
indeed that a revolutionary movement can make head-
way in any country when, as in the U. S. S. R. , its people
have recently won a smashing military victory and are
enjoying full employment and a steady bettering of eco-
nomic conditions.
Furthermore, insofar as defense is concerned, a string
of buffer-state allies buttress the European borders of
Soviet Russia; while in Asia Communist China, with its
huge resources, a population of 460 million and a rapidly
developing economy, is allied to the U. S. S. R. in a mutual
security pact. A war with the Soviet Union clearly means
a conflict with the entire bloc of Communist-led countries
from Poland and Czechoslovakia in the West to China
and North Korea in the East. The military deadlock in
the Korean struggle has demonstrated that the Commun-
ist-trained troops of the Asiatic mainland are formidable
fighters.
The Library of Congress has estimated that the Sec-
ond World War cost mankind approximately $4,000,000,-
000,000-four trillion dollars- and 40,000,000 in human
casualties. The United States alone spent $351,000,000,-
000 initially, but the ultimate expense -- including inte-
rest, pensions, bonuses and so on -- will come to about
$1,400,000,000,000,000. We can be sure that a Third
World War, with atom and quite possibly hydrogen
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? CO-EXISTENCE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOW
bombs showering down upon the great industrial centers
of Europe, Asia and America, will be far more costly in
terms of property and human life. But the main question
I want to ask is this: When the fearful holocaust is over,
what will the net gain be for the United States or any
of the belligerents? In a war to the death between the
American-led bloc and the Communist-led bloc will not
both sides essentially be losers, no matter who "wins"?
In the New York Herald Tribune of June 18, 1951,
Mr. Walter Lippmann, the most intelligent columnist
of the conservative press in America, made some interest-
ing predictions about the over-all economic and political
consequences of a total war between the American and
the Communist coalitions. Mr. Lippmann is of the
opinion that the United States and its allies would ulti-
mately win the global conflict. But in the process "West-
ern Europe would sink into anarchy, and North America,
victorious but weary, impoverished and isolated, would
find it hard to preserve the remnants of its freedom and
harder still to bring back to life again the stricken civili-
zation of the Western World. "
This terrible war, Mr. Lippmann goes on to say,
"would be so devastating and prolonged that in all of the
Eurasian continent there would be left no governments of
sufficient power and authority to restore order and recon-
struct the ruined world. " The final outcome would be
"a vast and formless disorder . . . for in a total war we
would have to destroy many of the great cities, and part-
icularly the great centers of administration and communi-
cation, in order to achieve victory. " Accordingly, Mr.
Lippmann prophesies, there would be a breakdown of
national states throughout Eurasia, with local dictator-
ships and terrorist gangs taking their place.
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
Mr. Lippmann's analysis makes clear that even an
American military triumph in the Great Atomic War
would result disastrously for both America and the world
at large. It would be a Pyrrhic victory of immeasurable
proportions. Instead of preserving and extending demo-
cracy, such a duel with communism would probably
bring about dictatorships throughout Europe and Asia,
and quite possibly in the United States as well. Instead of
bolstering capitalism, it would finish it abroad and very
much weaken it in America. However, and this Mr.
Lippmann does not state, it would create on a widespread
scale such catastrophic conditions of poverty, starvation,
economic collapse and political chaos that Communist
and socialist movements would have a unique opportun-
ity for triumphant resurgence.
Those who think they can contain communism
through military power overlook the revolutionary pos-
sibilities, if not probabilities, of international conflict.
As Dorothy Thompson explains: "Revolutions, to be
sure, carry on wars; but wars create the revolutions. For
war is, itself, a revolution, embodying the very spirit of
violence in its most complete expression, infecting the
human spirit, accustoming men to hideous cruelties, dis-
locating stable economies, and intensifying all the griev-
ances and injustices which are present in every society,
by adding to them the supreme injustice -- injustice
against the very order of nature. For in the order of na-
ture, the sons of men bury their parents; but in the order
of war, the parents bury their sons. Both ancient and
modern revolutions illustrate this inter-relationship be-
tween war and revolution. "1
Miss Thompson goes on to state that the French,
Russian and Chinese Revolutions all followed on the
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? CO-EXISTETiCE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOW
heels of international war. "A handful of Bolshevist
agitators," she says, "could never have seized power in
Russia but for the anarchy accompanying collapsing
armies and the cry of a war-weary people for peace. . . .
The Chinese Revolution was also a direct result of over a
decade of war. . . . As for Europe, the thought that it
could be saved for any order of liberty and law by another
war fought on its soil cannot be entertained by anyone
with a political mind. Another war would break down
the last remnants of political, social and economic order,
already undermined by the last war, and regardless of
the machinations of the European Communist Parties. "
The facts are, of course, that the First World War,
in which the Western democracies were victorious, did
give the Communists their chance to put across the Rus-
sian Revolution. The Second World War, in which the
Western Powers were again triumphant, and in which
the Fascist Triplice desperately tried to wipe out "the
Red peril" in both East and West, opened the gates to
Communist domination throughout Eastern Europe and
the vast domain of China, with its teeming population;
wrecked or bankrupted capitalism in Britain, France,
Germany and Italy; and set off the chain reaction of re-
bellion against Western imperialism all over Asia. The
Third World War could comparatively advance the
cause of international communism, which might as a re-
sult engulf Western Europe, the Middle East and south-
ern Asia. As I have said many times, the Communists are
opposed to international war; but if it is imposed upon
them, they will most certainly try to take advantage of
it to spread their influence and rule.
Where I disagree with Walter Lippmann is in his too
easy assumption that the American-led bloc would win
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
over the Communist-led bloc in a Third World War.
Although I am no more of a military expert than Mr.
Lippmann, I think it more likely that in the long-drawn-
out struggle both sides would score dramatic successes
here and there, but neither would emerge with decisive
victory. The result would be a military stalemate; and
the two blocs would cease fighting at last because of
mutual exhaustion and destruction.
I am convinced that despite all the recent develop-
ments in airplanes and atomic bombs, no well-organized
modern state possessing a large population, up-to-date
armaments and a territory of continental proportions is
likely to capitulate without an overwhelming invasion
by ground troops. I doubt whether American-led armies
would have even as much success in marching through
the U. S. S. R. as did Hitler's mechanized legions, which
at least had the advantage of proximity. And let us re-
member that the Nazis never captured Moscow, as did
the ill-fated Napoleon in 1812. In fact today the Soviets,
with their vast industrial development of the Siberian
hinterland and Soviet Central Asia, could lose Moscow,
Gorky and Stalingrad, and yet remain a formidable fight-
ing force defending and striking back from the Volga
River line and setting up a new capital far behind the
Urals in the middle of Siberia. Under these circum-
stances the Soviets would still retain an area twice as big
as continental United States.
But the sensational blueprints for the conquest of the
U. S. S. R. overlook little details like this. For instance,
Collier's issue about the Third World War envisages the
Red armies falling apart and the Soviet Government
collapsing on the basis of "peripheral attacks against the
'heartland' by land, air and sea (utilizing to the full the
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? CO-EXISTEHCE OR CO-DESTRUCTION
transport capacity and mobility of sea and air power) and
heavy bombing attacks against the enemy's interior. No
deep land penetration of Russia was ever attempted -- or
indeed, ever seriously contemplated. "2 According to this
scheme, the anti-Soviet armies halted only two or three
hundred miles within the Soviet border, at the Pripet
Marshes and Kiev. Thus the Collier's military "experts"
light-heartedly sidestep that very inconvenient defense-
in-depth which is the classic Russian method of dealing
with an invading foe.
Moreover, in the conflict with the Communist-led
bloc, America and its allies would have to knock out
through invasion another exceedingly tough customer,
namely, the People's Republic of China. If the hard-
hitting Japanese armies could not subdue a disorganized
though stubborn China over a period of some ten years,
it does not seem probable that a new expeditionary force
would get much farther against a China now far more
unified and far better able to defend itself than under
the corrupt and inefficient regime of Chiang Kai-shek.
In this discussion I have been assuming that the forces
at the command of the American coalition have been able
with no great trouble to reach the frontiers of Soviet
Russia and China. But naturally the Soviet-Chinese
coalition is not going to sit idly by permitting such a
thing to happen. Indeed, if a Third World War should
break out, it seems likely that one of the first develop-
ments would be for Soviet armies to push a considerable
distance westward in Europe and for Chinese armies to
overrun much of southeastern Asia. If this should take
place, the American bloc, with less manpower at its dis-
posal than the enemy, would have a tremendous job
simply driving him back to his own borders.
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
In analyzing what might happen in a Third World
War, we cannot neglect the possibility of a victory for
the Communist bloc. In my opinion this eventuality is
as unlikely as a clearcut defeat for the Communist bloc.
For it would be just as difficult for the Soviet coalition
to invade and knock out the United States and Canada
as for America and its allies to invade and knock out
Communist China and Russia. One very fundamental
complication would immediately arise for the Soviet-Chi-
nese command in that it does not possess a vast fleet of
steamships, with a powerful navy to escort them, for the
transportation of the necessary millions of men across the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to the shores of the U. S. A.
This consideration alone shows how utterly irrational it
would be for the Soviet Union or China to contemplate
or undertake a war of aggression against North America.
As to atomic bombing, Americans cannot afford to
forget that continental United States is less than one-
fourth the combined area of China and Soviet Russia, in
both of which industry is widely dispersed over an enorm-
ous territory. Discussing this situation Mr. Stephen
White, an editor of Look and a close student of atomic
developments, wrote in 1952: "It must be realized that
Russia doesn't need as many bombs as the United States
needs. We live in a highly organized country. Russia is
generations behind in organization. That is our strength,
and our weakness. . . . America is like a watch -- a few
bombs at vulnerable spots could create chaos. Russia is
like a sundial -- not nearly as efficient as we are, and not
nearly as vulnerable. "3
A global conflict, then, between the two Great Power
blocs that control so much of the earth today would be
a futile, horrible catastrophe for all the countries in-
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? COEXISTENCE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOW
volved and for humanity as a whole. It would unloose
a mutual outpouring of death and destruction that could
set back human progress for centuries. And it would
surely result in the accelerated development of new weap-
ons of war even more fearful than the present atom
bombs. Already in February, 1952, William L. Laurence,
science reporter of The New York Times, stated that
American scientists can definitely produce the "cata-
clysmic hydrogen bomb. " About the same time Dr. L.
E. C. Hughes, Chairman of Britain's Atomic Information
Institute, said that a big-scale H-bomb explosion would
probably be the end of the world.
Even if there were any capitalism or any socialism
left, the Great Atomic War would not bring an ultimate
decision as to the respective merits of the two systems. In
any case we cannot accept as the main criterion of a civil-
ization's worth its ability to wage and win an interna-
tional conflict. The Third World War would most cer-
tainly create more problems than it solved; and would
leave mankind in a bitter, disorganized, economically
chaotic state which would in all likelihood lead to future
wars and revolutions. We cannot doubt that such a war
would be madness for everyone concerned.
2. Effects of American Foreign Policy
In his speech of November, 1945, Under Secretary
of State Dean Acheson, referring to American-Russian
relations, said: "For nearly a century and a half we have
gotten along well -- remarkably well when you consider
that our forms of government, our economic systems and
our special habits have never been similar. . . . Never,
in the past, has there been any place on the globe where
the vital interests of the American and Russian people
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
have clashed or even been antagonistic -- and there is no
objective reason to suppose that there should, now or in
the future, ever be such a place. There is an obvious
reason for this. We are both continental peoples with
adequate living space -- interested in developing and
enjoying the living space we have. Our ambition is to
achieve the highest possible standards of living among our
own peoples, and we have the wherewithal to achieve high
standards of living without conquest, through peaceful
development and trade. We have that opportunity, more-
over, only to the extent that we can create conditions of
peace and prevent war. Thus the paramount interest,
the only conceivable hope of both nations, lies in the
cooperative enterprise of peace. "4
Mr. Acheson's words are as applicable today as in
1945. But Mr. Acheson as Secretary of State has, I sub-
mit, followed policies inconsistent with his earlier opin-
ions. As the member of President Truman's Cabinet
primarily responsible for the foreign policy of the United
States, he has taken the lead in curtly turning down the
repeated proposals of the Soviet Government over the
past few years for a top-level conference between the
U. S. A. and the U.
